Answers
by AGENT Kuma-chan
Summary: A smile, a laugh, an understanding--these are the things that make up small victories. Sometimes, that is all they have. --Kanda, Lenalee, Miranda, Lavi, Allen.


**Title: **Answers  
**Day/Theme:** November 17 // before I doubt my memories, my memories doubt me  
**Series:**  
**Character/Pairing: **Lenalee, Lavi, Kanda, Miranda, Allen  
**A/N: ****Slightly AU story, this is a kinda pointless (plotless) drabble. Except for the last line, which, when I wrote it, made me think, ****_hey, maybe there is a purpose somewhere here._**** Except, you'll probably have to search a little to see that purpose. Sorry about that. **  
**Summary:** A smile, a laugh, an understanding—these are the things that usually come with small victories.

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"Who are you?"

Lavi stares at the speaker, unsure of whether to reply or not. Is there even a need, considering who's asking?

(Does he really want to know, remember who it is?)

"Who are you?" Insistance this time, an urgent need.

"I'm..." His voice sounds dry and parched, like the papers Bookman likes to write on. He swallows, chokes on the sand, and continues. "I'm Lavi."

"..." The speaker stares steadily at him, two green eyes meeting, a shock of fire passing for hair. Even this incarnation had the eyepatch, Lavi thinks before he looks down to the ground.

Lake. It pools around his feet, stretching endlessly and peeking between the dark masses. A thousand coffins lie around him, a small portion of them closed. The rest swing open, inviting him in (come, sleep, rest, never go back).

Inviting the future verisons to their depths.

Choppy sentences, choppier words flood his mind. He chooses the least coarse one. "What?"

-x-

Kanada is her first memory. Here, at least, and the only one she really counts.

(The other ones refuse to fade to the background, their straps melding in her skin, their training forcing her limits),

She first sees a blurr of silver and black, midnight shot through flesh and bone, and it is that vision that kept her calm for three days.

"His name is Kanda," a nurse tells her when he strides pass her door. "He's an excorist, like you."

Something changes after that. Perhaps they realized she is finally interested in something, perhps they see a way to gain control over her. Either way, he starts to stop by every now and then. Mandatory check-ups forcing him past the threshold of her door, he gives her a cool glance before strips off his shirt and waits for the ordeal to be over with.

She wishes she had the will to say something, but there is a fear that gnaws her at night and that stops her more than her broken cords do.

They aren't friends, not even aquitances really. She keeps track of his swishing coats and ill-used voice and he gives a silent nod if he found her awake in the room.

It isn't much but for a girl prone to be suicidal, it is the world in a handbasket.

-x-

Allen dreams of piano keys and music notes, of a crooked grin and elephant teeth. There is a host of people cheering him on, all dark-skinned, all with dark, dark eyes and dark, dark hair.

They smile at him, twisted things that make children scream and lovers bleed. _We're waiting_, they whisper, a scraping noise that escapes their cracked lips. _We're waiting._

Not for me, he tries to say. Not for me. Someone else, but not me.

_Oh, but we love to hear you play. We love to see you dance. Won't you give us a song?_

No, no, no. I don't know how. I don't know you. Go away. Go AWAY.

_That hurts. We know you, you know us. Here, take our hands._

He doesn't want to, he never does, but in those dreams skeleton fingers reach out to clasp their rotting flesh.

-x-

Miranda half-huddles, half-crouches. A weird gait that she walks when she's heading home or leaving it. Now it's even more awkward, a small clock following her every step.

For a moment, a smile lights her face. Looking behind, she sees the ancient oak, hears the metal gong.

"We'll be good friends, you and I," she whispers to it, her fingers brushing the glass case. "Very good friends."

Best friends in fact.

She wishes the clock could respond, could say, _Thank you_ and _I need you_. Instead it gongs again and she takes that as a chime of agreement.

-x-

The flowers have grown. Multiplied like rabbits, they land on every surface available. They're all the same colour and his vision is like a field of white.

It's not nearly as soft and pleasing as the snow.

His feet step in them, little petals flying to the sky with each stomp before landing and growing into new blooms. These flowers are not as delicate as they are made out to be. A pest, a parasite, a problem.

Kanda grimaces.

-x-

Lenalee's second memory is Lavi, a boy who shot past the stars. His hammer swings him from place to place and he always asks her to go wtih him.

She couldn't, the table her only bed and the room her only home. They wouldn't allow it and she isn't capable of escaping.

Instead, he tells her stories about places he's been, people he's seen. It's a new world every day and when Kanada's not there, he slips in for a small voyage.

When she finds out that her innocence can make her fly, she dreams of flying beside, beyond the boy of fire and seeing those places herself.

-x-

Allen dashes to and fro, to and fro, and eventually calms down long enough to sit down. His fingers drum on the bed and his feet tap out a tune he doesn't know.

(But he does.)

With a sigh, he falls back into the plush pillows and waits for the next trial to begin. So far, he isn't sure of how he's doing. Sometimes, he has to pause and think about what it even is that he's doing.

The memories are coming faster and faster, a jet train blurring past. Not all of the windows are lit, not all of them are understandable.

He doesn't even recongize them most of the time.

Allen sometimes sees a piano, phantom hands drifitng down the keys. At others, he is teasing someone, talking to someone, confiding with someone. They are all strangers, all people he should not know.

All people that call him theirs and them his.

Allen walks over to the piano in the corner and for the first time ever, plays something.

He smiles when finds he hates the sound.

-x-

The lake seems larger this time, but that isn't possible. He hasn't changed yet and if he had, he wouldn't remember looking at it before.

He doesn't receive an answer for any of his questions. Instead, the coffins remain tightly shut, their occupants in a perment state of hibernation, and he almost feels himself being dragged under.

(He can't, he won't—there are still stories to tell her, still new ones to make.)

Fingers dipping into the water, he watches the ripples form and leave. "Why am I here?"

"…" There is no answer from his silent companion. Perhaps his mind is already sleeping while his body keeps watch.

Maybe this will be Lavi's job when he is sent here permanently.

He watches the coffins bob in the lake and for a moment, he wonders about their lives. They might have loved, might have cried, might have a short lifetime of stories to tell. Maybe Bookmen has a thousand of these coffins in his mind, maybe he changes less as age grew and he has forgotten what those emotions are.

Lavi pauses at that thought. He will eventually not know what feelings are, eventually not care for the pleasures of laughter and jokes.

Then he laughs at that thought. Long before that happens, 'Lavi' will be sleeping in a coffin while the next guy takes over.

(He's already imagining how to tell this to her—_there used to be a king, you know, of coffins_...)

-x-

Kanda has almost forgotten of the tests, of the voice on the other side, of that boy's death. He doesn't fully, can't when everyone goes out of their way to remind him in an ill-attempted play at sympthy and guilt.

He doesn't need any of that—that boy is gone, dead to him and the world, and so are the things that came with it.

There is nothing else that has to be done, nothing else that needs to be said.

-x-

Miranda rubs the clock once more, finishing off the polishing. It gleams at her, the glass perfectly clear and the wood a brighter hue.

"I think you look much better now. A new home, a new coat, things are already looking better for you."

She ignores the stones tapping on her window, the jeers and taunts that flow in. Someone is knocking on a door, yelling and screaming, and another is singing a song on Miranda and her bad luck.

Instead, she listens to the clock's ticking and calls it her heartbeat.

-x-

"…Hel….Hello…." A cracked voice greets him when he steps over the threshold once more.

It's the girl. She's still strapped down, but this time in a sitting position. Her eyes are downcast, a slight trembling as she waits for his response.

"….Hi." With that, he starts to take of his shirt again, waiting for the nurse to start checking him.

She's taking her time with this and he realizes she's milking this scene for all it's worth. Trying to keep the girl's—Lenalee, he remembers—interest in excorism and life. "Hurry up."

"…." Lenalee makes another attempt at speaking, stopping herself midway before trying again. "I…I'm…Lena…lee…"

"…" The nurse jabs him a little harder with the stethoscope than she should have and he takes the hint. "Kanda." Another jab. "Kanda Yuu."

She smiles at that, a healthy colour in her usually pale cheeks, flushed with joy. Excitement. Pride.

The things that usually come with small victories.

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End file.
